Interpretation Rule

Interpretation Rule

There are three primary rules for interpreting the law.

The normal aids that a judge has include access to all previous cases in which a precedent has been set, and a good English dictionary.

Under the literal rule, the judge should do what the actual legislation states rather than trying to do what the judge thinks that it means. The judge should use the plain everyday ordinary meaning of the words, even if this produces an unjust or undesirable outcome.

The golden rule is used when use of the literal rule would obviously create an absurd result. The court must find genuine difficulties before it declines to use the literal rule.

There are two ways in which the golden rule can be applied. The narrow method and the broad method.

Under the narrow method – when there are apparently two contradictory meanings to a word used in a legislative provision or it is ambiguous, the least absurd is to be used.

The mischief rule is the most flexible of the interpretation methods.

It allows the court to enforce what the statute is intended to remedy rather than what the words actually say.

(ex: a man was found guilty of being drunk in charge of a carriage, although in fact he only had a bicycle.)

In US the courts have stated consistently that the text of the statute is read as it is written, using the ordinary meaning of the words of the statute.

Courts’ duty:

In interpreting a statute a court should always turn to one cardinal canon before all others –

(a)    Courts must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means in a statute what it says there.

(b)   Indeed, when the words of a statute are unambiguous, then this first canon is also the last: ‘judicial enquiry is complete’.

(c)    A fundamental rule of statutory construction requires that every part of a statute be presumed to have some effect, and not be treated as meaningless unless absolutely necessary.

(d)   In assessing the statutory language, unless words have acquired a peculiar meaning, by virtue of statutory definition, they are to be construed in accordance with their common usage.

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